


No Other Options

by dramaticbanjo



Category: Inazuma Eleven GO
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 06:10:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4008820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramaticbanjo/pseuds/dramaticbanjo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is probably not a happy ending for someone like me, <br/>who has done things that I did, <br/>but I’m going to put myself out there anyways.</p><p>Or, Zanark tries to save what he loves, and by extension, Earth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Other Options

Nishiki remembered when they were all chosen, how proud they were to be called, and how everyone’s jaws dropped when Zanark managed to sneak in and join the team.   
They were going to fight the world together.   
Everyone was going to get a happy ending, Zanark wasn’t going to be chased by El Dorado, and, if things had been going the way it looked like, the time traveler would most likely be sleeping over at his house when it was all done. 

This was a pathetic sight. The midfielder could feel tears well up when he tried to stand. The aliens, he didn’t know which ones, they had fought so many and they had lost. They were the strongest in history and they lost. And now Earth was going to pay, all because they couldn’t win this game.   
For once in his life, Nishiki hated soccer. 

Zanark was the only one still standing. The formerly invincible player looked like it was taking all of his strength to stand, and there wasn’t a hint of amusement or arrogance in his expression. The alien forward gave him a disdainful sniff, “Well, you’re an annoying one, yes?” With deceptive grace, they savagely kicked the ball, solidly hitting him in the stomach, making him gasp in pain and fly back. “So why don’t you stay down, yes? You can stay here and you do not perish with the rest of humans.”   
“Ha!” Zanark managed a laugh that was more of a pained wheeze, “Keeping me down is impossible! I’m the strongest forward in history!”  
Another disdainful sniff, “Strongest on Earth, mayhaps, but you are nothing out here, yes?” Another kick and Zanark was knocked off of his feet, making Nishiki yell, “You are nothing out here! Out here, you are weak! When this tournament began, yes, you said you were the strongest of the lower middle class with no name but with one? Yes?” The alien’s smirk turned into a nightmarish sneer, brandishing sharp teeth, “Maybe you should go back to being nameless! You’re so weak, you make me sick!” Their howling laughter echoed around the stadium, and Nishiki pulled himself over to where Zanark was struggling to get up again.  
“Zanark…”  
“Heh. I’ll show them…I’ll show all of them…”  
“Zanark.”   
In surprise, he finally looked at Nishiki, “Eh? What’s with that look on your face?”  
“Zanark, just…just stay down.”   
“Eh?” Nishiki gave him a pained, resigned smile, and it was like Zanark’s world crumpled. “We can’t beat them now.”  
“Why are you saying that?” He growled, pulling Nishiki up a little by his collar, rage sparking in his red eyes, “Why are you talking about giving up?!”   
Nishiki’s hand came up to rest over his, “We can’t win.”  
It was like ice had flooded down Zanark’s spine and through his blood, “…You want to…give up?”  
A sad nod.   
The whistle blew.   
Zanark fell to his knees and his arms hung uselessly at his sides, no longer grabbing at Nishiki’s uniform.   
“We…lost?” 

Before Earth’s final moments, Nishiki couldn’t find Zanark. The player from the future probably hated them all now, he thought sadly.   
Ironically, it was Coach Kuroiwa who found him on one of the observation decks, studying something in his hand that was hidden from view.  
“It’s a beautiful view they have.” The Coach rumbled, “They let everyone on the team survive.”  
Zanark grunted, “That’s great, old man.”   
Behind the dark sunglasses, the forward could feel the others’ gaze, “If you’re so interested in me, take a picture.”  
“You came from the future.”  
“So what if I did? That future is going to cease to exist, and I’m going to disappear.”   
There was silence for a moment.   
“What if there was a way to change this.”  
“Eh? You’re talking crazy if you think you can muck around in time so much, besides, those alien bastards are too strong.”   
“There is a way to beat them.” Zanark looked up in surprise and disbelief, “You’re crazy.”  
“Far from it. On Earth, all through the tournament, there have been people working on finding out the aliens’ weakness.”  
Zanark snorted, “Your answer came too late.”  
“Indeed.”  
His eyes narrowed, “You want to travel back and make the right team. If you don’t get it right the first time, you’re going to run the risk of vanishing into the time stream.”  
Kuroiwa was silent.  
“…But you already thought of that, haven’t you?”   
He took the coach’s silence as his answer. With a smirk, one that hadn’t been on his face in a long time, Zanark stood up, stowing his keepsake away in his pocket, “Then we’ll have to get started.” 

The first time was too late. The second time was plagued with bad luck. Things were worse by the third jump.   
Zanark was starting to lose track of how many time he had activated the time machine.   
By the fourth jump, Kuroiwa was starting to choose people outside of Raimon.   
The fifth one had the Captain from Arakumo collapse due to overworking his body.   
And the sixth one…well, they didn’t want that one. 

If he counted the tally marks on his motorcycle’s side, it was around their 17th attempt now.   
“Old man! Do you need me every time?”  
“I need someone on the field.” Was all the answer he got, making Zanark frown, “Am I needed at the beginning? When you’re gonna’ first choose everyone?”  
Kuroiwa paused from what he was doing on his computer, “…Do you have a new idea?”  
“It’s a long shot, but it might help this ‘Beast System’ you’re trying to work out.”

He stopped making tally marks after the 20th or so jump, instead focusing on what they haven’t tried yet. By now, almost the entire team was going to be made up of people not from Raimon at first.   
“Old man! We’re running out of options, you know.”  
“Are you giving up, Zanark?”   
Standing in front of a huge screen, Zanark frowned, which was becoming more and more common until it had become almost as permanent as his smirk had been, “I didn’t say that.”  
“Do you have a new plan you want to try?”  
For the first time since they had started this mad attempt at rewriting the destruction of the Earth, and everything Zanark admitted he loved, Kuroiwa sounded like he was running out of ideas as well.   
“…I do. There’s a device that was once used when they had to release criminals but couldn’t risk them remembering what they had done…”

Behind his sunglasses, Kuroiwa’s eyes were tired, and ringed by dark circles. Zanark had warned him about repeated time jumps to the same era, but he had never imagined it would be so bad.   
Out on the field, Tenma was being introduced to their newest player, Endou standing off to the side. Whether the Raimon coach had caught onto the truth, he didn’t show it, instead letting his student show off his hissatsu to the rest of Shinsei Inazuma Japan. Without a word, Kuroiwa stood up and left.   
In front of the goal, Tenma watched the newcomer’s expression fall when their coach left. “Don’t worry, he’s always like that!” He smiled warmly, “It’s nice to have you on the team, Ichikawa-san!”  
“Ah, please, just call me Zanakurou.”   
At the sidelines, Mizukawa calmly watched him, holding a device in her hand, before stowing it away in a bag. “At least it worked. He doesn’t remember anything.” After another moment, she followed the coach and left.

**Author's Note:**

> Completely and utterly AU now that Galaxy has finished.


End file.
